Chapter 2 - Behind the Wire
The iron latch was cold, slick with frost, and stubborn. Rust bit into the flesh of my thumb as I rattled the mechanism, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached.
"Natalie?" Maya’s voice was barely a breath, trembling with an impossible mix of recognition and sheer terror. "Aunt Natalie?"
My vision blurred with hot tears, but I forced them back. There was no time for an emotional reunion. Julian was somewhere inside the estate, and whatever lay inside that locked leather briefcase wasn't meant for human eyes.
"Shh, baby. Don't speak," I whispered through the cold metal. "Keep Leo warm. I’m getting you out. Right now."
The newborn shifted against her chest. Maya clutched him closer, her knuckles white. She had my sister’s brave chin, the stubborn tilt of the head Clara always wore whenever the world tried to beat her down. For three years, I had believed Clara’s children had perished with her along the rocky cliffs of Route 1. The police report had been conclusive: burned beyond recognition, DNA fragmented, case closed.
Yet here she was. Breathing. Terrified. Locked in a kennel like an animal.
With a muffled groan of exertion, I threw my weight against the rusted iron pin. The hinge gave way with a sharp *clack* that sounded like a gunshot in the dead of the night.
"Come here," I breathed, scooping Maya by the waist as she scrambled through the opening. She weighed next to nothing. Her ribs pressed sharply against her cotton nightclothes.
I took the bundle from her arms first. Little Leo was impossibly light, his tiny face flushed, his breathing shallow. A faint smell of lavender and bitter almonds lingered on the blanket—a mild pediatric sedative. Victoria had dosed him just enough to keep him from crying out.
Suddenly, a flashlight beam cut through the darkness, sweeping across the glass walls of the conservatory above us.
"Someone’s in the courtyard," a voice echoed through the open second-floor balcony. It wasn't Julian. It was deeper, rougher—the voice of an enforcer.
"Run," I hissed, grabbing Maya’s hand and ducking low beneath the manicured rhododendron bushes that lined the stone perimeter wall.
"Where are we going?" Maya whimpered, her tiny feet bleeding from sharp gravel. "Mommy said... she said the man in the blue suit would take us to the river if we made a sound."
"She called him that? Not 'Daddy'?" I asked, pulling her into the deep shadow of the Victorian carriage house at the edge of the estate.
Maya shook her head violently. "He isn't my daddy. He bought us. He bought us from the hospital people after Mommy Clara went to sleep."
A wave of nausea hit me so violently I had to brace my hand against the damp brick wall. The car crash hadn't been an accident. Clara hadn't died from impact; she had been erased. And Julian Sterling hadn't adopted an orphan out of the goodness of his philanthropic heart. He was holding them hostage.
Before I could process the horror, the door to the carriage house clicked.
The brass knob turned slowly. A shadow spilled across the threshold, silhouetting a tall figure holding a heavy iron fire poker.
I shielded Maya behind my back, my free hand curling into a fist, ready to fight to the death.
The figure stepped into the moonlight.
It was Victoria.
Her champagne satin dress was torn at the shoulder, her expensive updo unraveling into wild blonde strands around her pale, sweat-streaked face. But she wasn't looking at me with the haughty disdain of an employer. Her eyes were hollowed out by absolute, unadulterated panic.
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"You idiot," she whispered, her voice cracking as she lowered the iron poker. "Why did you take them out of the pen? That was the only blind spot on his thermal cameras!"
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